Blammer - Gun Blog

Testing a new lighting setup to get softer shadows. Here’s a very dry-looking Kimber Custom TLE II, covered with crud from the leather IWB it’s been sitting in.

I’m preparing to take the training and apply for my California CCW. Since you have to register the weapon you intend to carry, I needed to select my first gun intended for concealed carry. My other firearms were not ideal choices. Most of my guns are magnum revolvers in stainless steel, heavy and not very concealable. My autos consist of a Walter P22 (.22 is obviously not a good defense round) and one 1911. A 1911 is a fine choice, but mine is full size and I’m shorter and smaller than your average man - I would have a hard and uncomfortable time keeping it hidden. It also features a manual safety, which I don’t train enough to trust that I’ll remember to disengage it in a fight. Also, my 1911 is “home gunsmithed” which puts it out of the question from a reliability standpoint (I’m not a professional smith) and from a liability standpoint, which I’ll get to in a bit. So there was nothing to do but head off to the gun store! My wife agreed, bless her Kimber Eclipse carrying heart.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a repost from my former blog: Gunnergrummz. We’ll be transfering some of the more useful stuff over the next few days.

The Dan Wesson is just about my favorite revolver with its interchangeable and highly accurate barrel system and massive frame and mean looking underlug. Smithing information on this gun is hard to come by, so here is a useful one for takedown:

There are very few sources of gunsmithing information availble for the Dan Wesson VH8 models. Here are mine as confirmed by the factory:

Dan Wesson Disassembly Instructions

1. Remove rear sight by punching out the retaining pin (this is to make hammer reinsertion later easier).
2. Remove the grips.
3. Pull the hammer back and tighten the 3/48th screw 1 or 2 turns to capture the hammer.*
4. Pull trigger to release the hammer into its captured position.
5. Pound out the hammer pivot pin left to right.
6. Pull trigger and lift hammer straight up out of its slot.
7. Punch out the trigger guard.
8. Remove half-moon lock on lower crane leg. use needle nose pliers to remove the crane lock.
9. Hold revolver upside down and work cylinder back and forth on crane to remove it.
10. Remove cylinder and crane assembly.
11. Unscrew the ejector rod, spinning it counter-clockwise.
12. Use empty cleaning rod to remove the main spring guide bye inserting the empty end over the spring guide where the guide meets the hammer. compress the spring and unscrew the 3/48 screw.

*On my own Dan Wesson, turning this screw did not capture the hammer, nor could I see how it would be possible. Your mileage may vary.

Smith & Wesson Model 327 TRR8 .357 Revolver

One look, and you either love it or hate it. The boards are completely polarized about if such a beast is practical, necessary or too ugly to go on living.

Being a revolver fan and amatuer gunsmith, I had always wanted to carve out a niche for myself by creating custom tactical and carry revolvers. After all, I hadn’t seen modern combat principles applied to this venerable format of firearm. They key factors would be the option of a light rail, tactical style finishes, moon-clips, de-horned carry surfaces and rugged sights with scope options.

Why? Well, despite what most people believe, the revolver is an excellent tactical weapon alternative to a semi-auto. Ammo capacity comes up often as the argument for semi-autos. But current revolvers hold 8 rounds, which is more than enough when you consider that the average rounds fired in an encounter is under 5 rounds. With moon-clips, reloads can be just as fast or faster than magazines (see Jerry Miculek).

Also, revolvers are also more reliable, period. They are simpler mechanisms, with fewer things to go wrong. They are safer, having a heavier double-action pull to keep finger clenching from battle tension from firing an unfortunate round. Sure, it is slower (if you are untrained), but that can be better too, making you aim each shot rather than spraying and praying. Being calm (relatively) and aiming is much more effective in a fight than just spanking the trigger.

Revolvers also allow you to carry a higher power round more comfortably than a semi-auto. When going up against body armor or opponents in cover, being able to employ a .41 or .44 magnum with hunting loads can give you a great advantage. I don’t know of a semi-auto that can handle that while being in as convenient and carry-able form factor as the revolver. In the home defense scenario with the occasional or infrequent gunner, they are also much easier to use. You don’t have to train to remove the safety, loading is obvious, and you don’t have to know how to rack a slide or clear a jam. You can make the argument that revolvers actually take more training for tactical or police use because of the double-action pull (if you ignore all those safety and tap-rack-bang drills)…but if you’re in that business you should be highly trained anyhow.

So, revisit that old wheelgun. Consider it as a backup or special purpose tactical firearm. I’ll be taking orders next spring.

Where’s all the gun pictures? Here’s one, of my XD-9 in the Tucker Gunleather “The Answer”. I’ve had this gun for two years now, my first handgun. Nice to see some wear on it.

First off, thanks for the intro. Now what Dave doesn’t understand is that my guns have “issues” because I picked em that way. How else will I get my gunsmithing skills up unless stuff needs fixin? Of course my tinkering sometimes results in more repairs being required to fix my fixes–but that’s just good economic sense. I get lots more practice out of the same set of guns!

We’ll probably never resolve our differences, but I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun trying. It’s good to be on board!

Well, I’ve finally upgraded the site from WordPress 1.2 to WordPress 2.0. It looks pretty much the same, but I figure that’ll be changing soon because buddy Grummz is coming aboard. I know, I know…he’s a revolver guy, but I don’t hold it against him. They’re pretty, even when they’re misfiring on the range. I’m probably just not holding them right. Yep, that must be it.

Additionally, Grummz has been teaching himself how to smith the 1911, so that’s something we can both agree on. We’re both pretty new to shooting, so expect a lot of discovery. If you’re a new shooter, you might enjoy our extremely sporadic ramblings. Looking forward to seeing a little more energy around here now. Welcome aboard, buddy!

I was browsing the server logs, and noticed there was a significant jump in traffic. Now, hardly anyone ever visits this site, so I tracked the referrers—that’s web-server talk for seeing where links are coming from—back to a forum on GlockTalk. They were discussing the modification I’d made to my Tucker Gunleather “The Answer” IWB holster. And apparently, more people than just me want the mod too. One of the people at Tucker has noticed and got in touch with Comp-Tac, the guys who provide their Kydex parts:

I visited the kydex folks today. We’ll have the kydex modification for Glocks next week. You can order on line here or call 800-308-6628 and leave me a message. I’ll call back promptly. If you order on line use the comments section to add the kydex “retainer piece.” I don’t know the cost yet but it won’t be more that a couple of dollars.

Awesome! Although no one will know it, I’ll be that guy who “made the little plastic thing that keeps your Glock from falling out of your Kydex IWB when you’re taking a dump”. It’s a far cry from being John Browning or Eugene Stoner, but heck I’ll take it.

I guess I don’t need to buy that kydex press now. I still need a holster for my Beretta 92SB, which I’ve grown to like shooting, but is hard to shop for.

Came across this auction site with a whole bunch of different vintage toy ray gun. Cool!

Just browsing the web for holsters, looking through RigRate to see what people were saying about various models I was considering. I like my Tucker Answer, especially after I fixed it to suit my desire for better retention.

Came across Holsters By Eric, and was charmed by its straight forward presentation by a guy who likes making gunleather. There’s a pretty good description of the difference in holster options that I found pretty informative (ride height, for example). He describes why these options exist, which a lot of websites don’t. Every page has useful information on it, and lots of photos. The holster I’m eyeing right now is the Com3, which looks like it would be quite concealable and comfortable. Tempting!